decode for us what happened today. i mean, the republicans told harry reid they had the votes to block the nomination-- block consideration of the nomination, yet he forced it to a vote in the amp anyway. why? >> he did. well, there are different imperatives floating around all cornerings of this vote, as there often are in the senate. opposition to senator hagel has mounted before he was even named and almost all of that opposition except for token opposition came from within his own party. building up today-to-today it was a question of would republicans require 60 votes to move forward with this nomination? not unprecedented for a cabinet nominee but harry reid was right it is unprecedented for a secretary of defense, for any national security nominee at the top level for that matter. as it got closer to the vote, then, the question became would democrats be able to peel five republicans to get to 60 and if not are republicans going to stick by their guns and make this a real filibuster? meaning we're going to withh